Chương 111: Requiem

The first sound was not a song. The breath Kichan had been forcing down leaked out of his throat. The Fragment of God's Word inside the sealed box and the dungeon mineral trembled at the same intervals. Kichan's breath slipped between the two sounds. Kichan's left hand moved in the empty air. His fingers bent as if he were holding the first chord of a guitar. His right hand swept one beat over a place where there were no strings. An old stage in Seoul came back to him.

The audience's faces were buried in darkness and could not be seen. Only the beat he had counted alone before the first line remained in his body. One. Two. The first note was too low and cracked at once. Kichan drew in another breath. The inside of his throat scraped, and there was a slight taste of blood. Even so, his hand held the next chord. When he sang in Seoul, there had been times when he missed the first note. Then he could pluck the guitar strings one more time. Now there were no strings under his hand.

Instead, there were the broken wooden wake-up rod, the shattered cup, and the button in the blood. Kichan looked at those things and sang the second note. The melody from Earth that the children called the thieves' song emerged. It was the tune Kichan had hummed without thinking while he cooked. It was the song he used to count the beat so Dust would not touch the pot. The children had followed along without knowing its meaning, and the melody had spread all the way to the other side of the market.

This time, no one sang along. Sounds not yet words mixed into Kichan's voice. When Kichan put the first name on his lips, the blood clotted under the salt scale shone in a thin line. At the next name, gold light gathered along the edge of the overturned teacup. For names his lips could not recall, he called to mind the hands he had seen in the market, the food, and the laughing faces. The names and objects he had called earlier in the ruins entered the melody one after another.

At the end, he even called the broken wooden wake-up rod. The words that entered the song were neither human language nor demihuman speech. When Kichan called a name, the meaning first changed into light, and his voice followed after it. Kichan could not know whether he was singing it wrong. His voice shook again on the second note the children always missed. The child he would normally have corrected with a laugh did not move. Kichan sang that note again from the beginning.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Once. Twice. Only on the third time did the melody stay beside the child. An ordinary song held the faces of the dead one by one. When Seria heard the first note, she came toward Kichan with blood on her hands.

"Do not carry it alone." Her voice barely came out. Seria caught Kichan's arm.

"Do not shoulder all those deaths by yourself." Theor tried to grip Kichan's shoulder with his uninjured arm too. His broken arm was still caught in the gate and could not move. Riphiel set down her sword. Valkyrie spread its body wide over the dead children. A faint light covered the small bodies all at once. Batu lowered his head. Dust did not move, the button it had found in the blood stuck to its body. Argaon tried to stop Kichan, then lowered his hand. Kichan's voice was low and quiet.

The latch of the sealed box opened by itself. The Fragment of God's Word rose over the box. Gold light flowing from the fragment connected Kichan's tongue and throat. The cracking pronunciation found its place with every note. In Seria's eyes, a gold ring floated over Kichan's head. At first, it was a thin line. Each time the notes rose, the gold grew longer until it became a complete circle. Riphiel caught her breath. Behind Kichan's back, light unfolded in two branches.

It was far clearer than the wings that had appeared briefly before and vanished. Gold letters and notes flowed through every feather. The ash of the market rose without wind. Light flowed between burned scraps of cloth and the broken cup. The same song reached the collapsed fortress and bridge, and even the battlefield where the blood had not yet cooled. Kichan's voice cracked. He did not stop. In the last phrase, a crack formed in the Fragment of God's Word. The fragment did not burst with light.

It silently came apart into white powder. The gold that had supported the tip of Kichan's tongue vanished with the white powder. The light spread by the song swept across the market ash and crossed the broken bridge. In front of the old cemetery, it could go no farther. Instead, beyond the collapsed palisade, it flowed low along the road into the battlefield where blood and ash were still steaming. First, a small chest inside Kichan's coat heaved.

It was the white owl with the emergency messenger mark that he had picked up on the northern road. When the small chest swelled once, the arrow stuck in it was pushed out and rolled onto the lining of Kichan's coat. As the owl pushed through Kichan's coat and came out, the document tube at its ankle struck the stone. The bird lifted its head even as it staggered. The same light seeped into the floor of the human army tent. Seru, who had fallen there with an arrow through the chest, exhaled a breath.

The soldier who had been setting the document tube beside Seru fell to his knees. Seru dragged one weakened wing along the floor and still pecked the back of that soldier's hand once. A horse with a broken leg trembled. A child coughed up ash. A parent who heard that cough opened their eyes. The parent could not get up right away. They groped along the ground for the child's hand, and only when their fingers touched did they let out a great breath.

A human soldier and a demihuman warrior breathed in at the same time on the same blood-soaked ground. One clutched his throat, and the other looked at the spear that had pierced him. At the riverbank, Ern and Karun, tied together by rope, spat out water. Whenever one coughed, the other's body was pulled along with him. Under the tea tent, Marena's fingers moved. After she breathed out, she opened her eyes beside the broken cup. Under the collapsed stones, the chests of Marten and Grad heaved as well.

Marten coughed first, and Grad opened his eyes at the sound. The collapsed stone remained between the two men. Marten moved his hand first, and Grad pushed the same stone from the opposite side. Seria mouthed the names of the people returning to life one by one. Those who opened their eyes saw the bloodied hand reaching toward them and turned their heads one after another. Across the market and the fortress, breaths returned. There were no cheers.

Only the harsh coughing of people who had died and then inhaled again filled the space where the song had ended.